God Like You
by Turkwise Koolaid
Summary: A meeting of two minds amidst the chaos of war. Spoilers for Chapter 510. One-shot.


**Author's Note**: I've always wanted to see the meeting between these two characters, but since Kubo never portrayed it on-screen, I decided I'd put pen to paper and give my rendition of how it might have gone. Once again, manga spoilers for Chapter 510. I don't own Bleach.

Silence. Darkness. Solitude. Each has its rightful place in this world. Woe to the man that finds them as his habitual companions, however, as the hand of time will gradually twist them into fiends that will sink into him with barbed fangs, gnawing at his mind with practiced, deliberate malevolence until his sanity has been eroded entirely.

Such was true for normal men, at least, but Aizen Sosuke was no normal man. Indeed, normalcy for him was a bit like the horizon. He was aware of its existence, out there at the furthest reaches of his perception, but there it would forever remain. Even if he were to feel compelled to journey towards it, it would always be a vague, poorly-defined ideal that he could most certainly see in the distance, but would most certainly never reach. That was how it had always been, and that was how it would continue to be.

He couldn't say that it bothered him terribly, not even as he sat bound to his chair with thick, black fabric in the dimly-lit cell in Muken that had become his home. How long had it been since they had placed him down here for treachery, undermining the spirit of the Gotei 13, attempted murder of several officers, successful murder of several more, and conspiracy to murder the "Soul King," among a litany of other charges? The novelty of keeping time had faded at 183 days, 16 hours, and between 30 and 40 minutes, but if he were to venture a guess now, he'd approximate that it would soon be approaching a year and a half. That left him with a mere 7,304,296 days – give or take – until the end of his sentence, assuming that he served it in full.

_They do say that time flies when you're having fun_, he thought wryly to himself.

He was always a patient man, even more so now that he had been granted immortality by his bond with the Hogyoku, but in spite of that he did have to admit - if to no one but himself - that he became rather bored at times. After all, there were only so many schemes he could concoct for his own amusement before the urge to get up and actually _do something _inevitably crept into him. Truthfully, a part of him – a small part of him – ached with a yearning for stimulation.

His thoughts were interrupted as the stimulation he subconsciously craved was suddenly forced upon him in the form of a distant sound: the grinding of metal upon metal, followed by a languid creak that sent a reverberating echo into the vast expanse of Muken.

_Has someone opened the door?  
><em>  
>His attention now fully under the command of the person or thing responsible for this sound, he listened intently for anything that might follow. In only moments he was rewarded with a persistent, soft shuffling that gradually drew closer over the course of the ensuing minutes.<p>

_Footsteps, _he concluded_.  
><em>  
>Once the shuffling had reached an indeterminate (but significantly closer) point relative to his location, it halted, leaving a vacuum of silence in its wake. He had very nearly wondered why when he became acutely aware of an enormous presence. The air around him became thick, almost charged with it, and he realized that whoever had come was strong. Very strong. Was it Yamamoto Genryuusai? No, it was certainly powerful enough, but it felt somehow different. It wasn't him. In fact, it didn't even feel like a Shinigami to begin with.<p>

_Who, then?  
><em>  
>He could neither see nor speak to his visitor, as his eyes and mouth had been bound thanks to a particularly thin-skinned member of Central 46, and so he could do nothing but listen and wait to see whether or not the owner of this aura would reveal himself to him.<p>

Suddenly, his ears were assaulted with an explosive pop and the screech of tearing metal. No sooner had he recognized the cacophony, he felt a disturbance in the air to his right as a large chunk of…something...seemed to sail past him and skid along the floor to a halt a distance away. The soft shuffling promptly continued, creeping closer and closer until it came to a rest right in front of him, causing the curiosity to intensify in the pit of his stomach. Without fanfare, he felt his head jerk forward slightly as the fabric covering his face was ripped off, leaving it naked to the world once more. His eyes had adjusted to neither the poor lighting of his cell, nor the light of the torch held by the figure before him before he heard his voice - a harsh, grating thing that pierced the air just as well as any blade could.

"Hello, Aizen Sosuke."

"Greetings," he ground out, surprised at the rasp that had seeped into his own voice from many months of disuse. "I must ask you to wait a moment and allow me collect myself…I should like to converse with you properly."

"There's no hurry," the voice replied. "Take your time."

Over the next few moments, his vision regained its focus, and he beheld a tall, apparently well-muscled man with a long, flowing cloak of black draped about his shoulders that made no pretense at hiding the bleached white collar of a shirt of some kind poking out from beneath. Studying him in the light of the torch he held aloft, he could see a bold chin, well-defined cheekbones, and a prominent nose perched above a thick black mustache that extended from the surprisingly well-kept muttonchops framing his broad face. Flames danced in eyes of reddish brown - notably lacking any eyebrows to speak of - that peered at him from beneath a mane of wild black hair that hung down most of the length of his back. Aizen was loathe to admit it, but he was an imposing figure.

"...Clearly you already know who I am, but I have not yet had the pleasure. Who might you be, if I may ask?" Aizen began conversationally.

"My name is Yhwach," the man replied.

Aizen's eyebrows rose slightly at that.

"Yhwach…? You must hold yourself in rather high regard to take the name of the god worshiped by so many humans," he noted with an amused smile.

"I've been called that for as long as I can remember...I've never known another name." Yhwach admitted. "The people of my village gave it to me when they saw the miracles I wrought."

"'Miracle' is simply a word that small minds ascribe to things beyond their comprehension," Aizen declared with a shrug. "The acts of the strong viewed in the eyes of the weak, nothing more."

"Hah," Yhwach barked a short laugh. "You're right. Making the blind to see, the lame to walk, the weak and sickly to become healthy…even the wondrous powers I carved into their souls…they couldn't possibly have known."

Aizen studied him for a moment. His expression was inscrutable, but Yhwach imagined that the wheels of his mind were turning tirelessly. From what he understood, this man was quite the intellectual, so it was hardly surprising.

"Then…you are a Quincy."

It was a statement, not a question. The man's lips curved in a grin, apparently pleased.

"I had volunteered only a little information…impressive. How did you figure it out?" Yhwach inquired.

"It was simple enough," Aizen replied with closed eyes. "You aren't a Shinigami, nor are you a Hollow; I can tell that by a mere glance at your reiatsu. No...you are human, and the only major groups of humans possessing extraordinary abilities are those wielding the hollow-touched power of soul manipulation…and the Quincy. There was a small probability that you were neither, but when you spoke of an entire village possessing wonderful abilities that originated from you, I knew that you _had_ to be a Quincy. In fact…it would be more accurate to say you were likely the first. That _is_ the case, yes?"

Yhwach's grin widened as he waved his hand casually toward the hunk of shattered iron prison bars that had come to a rest near Aizen earlier. Reishi separated from it and flew toward him, the gleaming particles forming a small platform suspended in the air behind him. He sat down with an audible grunt and made himself comfortable, crossing one leg over the other.

"Very astute of you…the Daten I had collected suggested that you were shrewd man. I see that I was correct. Indeed, I am the Father of the Quincy – my blood flows in the veins of all who bear the name."

Aizen spent a few seconds watching as the remnants of the reishi particles took their place in his makeshift chair before he acknowledged that Yhwach had said anything.

"Then you are the first human I have encountered that is older than I am," he observed with some interest. "Older than many Shinigami, in point of fact. When I was perusing the archives during my time as a captain of the Gotei 13, I found records of the Quincy waging war against the Shinigami over a thousand years ago…I assume the leader described therein was you?"

"I was the one that led them, yes." Yhwach answered, shifting slightly in his seat and crossing his arms before looking past the imprisoned man in front of him and into the darkness beyond. "But…I underestimated the power of Yamamoto Shigekuni and his Gotei 13."

"A mistake you came to soon regret, I imagine," Aizen surmised.

"Hmph," he snorted disdainfully.

"Well, I presume that you and whatever army you're leading have returned to settle that score, then. By the way, speaking of Yamamoto," Aizen began, as though just remembering. "Where is he? This place is beneath the 1st division, and I somehow doubt that he would have been inclined allow you past him as anything more than a corpse charred beyond recognition…and I don't suppose your intention of speaking with me would have made him any more receptive to the idea either. Did you defeat him?"

"Soon enough. The old man is preoccupied with my clone at the moment," Yhwach chuckled, the grin reappearing. "One of my underlings can perfectly replicate my appearance, personality, and memories. He should keep him entertained, if only for a short while."

"I see…so then, we've arrived at the question of the hour. What business do you have with _me_?" Aizen asked.

The Quincy uncrossed his legs and rested his palms upon his knees as he leaned forward slightly, the smile slipping away. The time for small-talk was over; it was time to get down to business.

"I would like you to ally with the Vandenreich," he stated without preamble.

"The Vandenreich…" Aizen repeated thoughtfully, the word feeling rather foreign on his tongue. "And what is that, exactly?"

"It is my empire, the empire which will lay waste to Soul Society and conquer the so-called 'Spirit Palace.' We could use a man of your abilities; you've already been placed on my list of five Special War Potentials, alongside Kurosaki Ichigo and a few select others."

The brunette's right eyebrow rose almost reflexively.

"Kurosaki Ichigo lost his Shinigami powers."

"You've been in this hole for some time, so it's understandable that you wouldn't know. He regained them," Yhwach replied casually.

"If you aren't concerned about that, then you should be," Aizen answered.

"Doubtful," the older man spoke with a dismissive wave of his hand. "As of this moment, he's engaged in battle with my Executive Hunting Captain in Hueco Mundo. If Opie has managed to stall him for this long, then he won't be a threat until he's already in the palm of my hands."

"That way of thinking is exactly why I'm here now," Aizen remarked, glancing idly at the black wrappings that bound the rest of his body to the chair.

Yhwach declined to argue that point further and chose instead to guide the conversation back to the matter at hand.

"That's all well and good, but I'm not here to talk about Ichigo. Will you join me?"

The younger man paused, regarding him in silence for several long moments before finally speaking.

"And…why…would I do that?"

"The Shinigami imprisoned you. Surely you want freedom. Surely you want _revenge_ – seeing Seireitei crumble beneath our boot heels and the Soul King lying dead at our feet."

The smile that had been on Aizen's lips for nearly their entire conversation slipped away. He no longer seemed amused, but neither did he seem angry. He simply stared at Yhwach wordlessly.

"What's with that face? You look like you have something to say." the Quincy prompted.

"You honestly think that I would bend the knee to you," Aizen intoned.

He spoke as though the thought of it were completely incomprehensible to him. Yhwach's brow furrowed and he rested his chin upon one hand.

"Why not? You'll achieve your objective, and you'll have your freedom from this pitiful cell. I would even grant you Quincy powers to replace the Shinigami powers you lost. It seems like a good deal for you, doesn't it?"

"If that is what you believe, then I'm afraid that you don't understand the first thing about me. You are wasting both my time and your own," Aizen said simply.

Yhwach grasped at one of the thick shocks of hair that adorned his face and stroked it thoughtfully.

"What do you mean? Explain yourself."

"Isn't it obvious? Your desire is to destroy Soul Society."

"Yours isn't?" the Quincy questioned, now somewhat befuddled.

Aizen wore a look that flirted with confusion, but didn't wholly commit to it.

"When did I give you the impression that it was?"

"What is it, then?" Yhwach urged, now growing impatient.

"To rule."

"I'm afraid that's going to be impossible," Yhwach informed him with a shake of his head. "Once I'm done, nothing will remain of the system set up by Shinigami…only the Vandenreich will be left standing, and I will stand at its head as I usher in a new age. But, I know that you hate the Soul King as much as I do, so I can offer you the consolation that you will at least see him perish. You will have to abide by my rule, however."

"You truly are a thing deserving of pity," the detained man lamented with a sigh.

Yhawch glanced at him questioningly, waiting for him to elaborate.

"I failed to reach my objective, and so you thought I'd settle for becoming your puppet," Aizen sneered. "Truthfully, I had wanted to laugh at such an absurd notion…but I realize now that the severity of your delusion is really no laughing matter. It's quite serious, actually. My condolences."

Yhwach's eyes narrowed as he glared at the man, not altogether appreciating the obvious mocking undertone in his words.

"I don't think you understand. I'm offering you the chance for vindication."

"I don't think _you_ understand, and so I will explain it to you in a way that you can comprehend," Aizen spoke curtly, his smooth voice not rising a single decibel over normal speaking volume or holding even a speck of anger therein. "I bow to no one. Not to the abomination currently inhabiting the Spirit Palace, and certainly not to you. I will see the old order overthrown, but only when I – and I _alone_ - am left to take the seat being defiled by that filth. I will not join your army. In fact, if the opportunity ever presents itself, and you somehow manage to escape both Yamamoto Genryuusai and Kurosaki Ichigo, then I will see to your downfall myself. And that, _Yhwach_, is a promise, not a threat."

Silence followed, leaving the dying echo of his words to fade into the darkness around them. Yhwach studied him wordlessly for several seconds before sighing and rising from his seat, causing the slab of reishi to vanish as though it had never existed at all.

"You truly think that you can, don't you…" the Quincy king finally murmured.

With this, he stood once again to his full height before Aizen. The latter said nothing, gazing at him placidly with eyes that seemed to ask "Do I look like one to speak idly?"

"Well, that's fine. You'll have an eternity to reconsider your decision," he said as he turned to leave.

Aizen simply watched his figure retreat into the darkness beyond the dim torchlight of his cell until he faded from sight. Yhwach was indeed powerful, like the old man, and every bit as myopic. Did he think brute strength alone could make him a _god_? How naive. He probably hadn't even realized just how much time had passed during their conversation.

"The extent to which you underestimated me might have been insulting, were it not so utterly laughable," Aizen muttered to himself with a smirk. Wonderful as the Hogyoku was, he had to concede that the artifacts of his old Shinigami powers did have their uses at times.

_Yamamoto Genryuusai, Kurosaki Ichigo…don't get the wrong idea. A day will come when that thing will perish…but that will do me little good with no kingdom to rule. Fortunately for you, I am in a generous mood and have managed to buy you a few precious minutes. Do not waste them._


End file.
